


The Awful Edges

by Krasimer



Series: The Horror Of Our Love [2]
Category: Fright Night (2011)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And murdered his parents, And then the crush was a monster, And wishes Charley had stayed away, But he wants to keep the kid safe, Childhood Trauma, M/M, Peter is traumatized, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Thirteen year old Peter had a crush, and angry, creeper Jerry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: You always remembered the first bloke you fancied.That was what he’d decided, anyway.Even if that first bloke wasn’t anything near as earth-shattering as the one he’d fancied. A friend of his parents’, the same monster he’d refused to admit existed when he was sober. He’d been a pretty face, a smooth voice, good wank material. He’d been thirteen at the time, old enough to know how his body worked, still too young to even think about pursuing anything with a man that much older than him.He’d been content to live as Peter Harrington, once.





	The Awful Edges

You always remembered the first bloke you fancied.

That was what he’d decided, anyway.

Even if that first bloke wasn’t anything near as earth-shattering as the one he’d fancied. A friend of his parents’, the same monster he’d refused to admit existed when he was sober. He’d been a pretty face, a smooth voice, good wank material. He’d been thirteen at the time, old enough to know how his body worked, still too young to even think about pursuing anything with a man that much older than him.

He’d been content to live as Peter Harrington, once.

The strange boy who’d conned his way into the flat, that was what had brought those memories rolling back.

Elisa and Charles Harrington, proud parents of Peter Harrington, the young actor. That was who he’d been, once. A young actor, a rising star – he’d wanted to host a horror series, at some point. Tell stories to those watching, something terrifying and dramatic.

Look at him now, the subject of his parents’ pride – a drunken Las Vegas magician carrying around a bottle of something strong enough to absolutely blank his mind out for an hour or two.

An alcoholic who’d run as far and as fast away from the tatters of his old life as he could get.

He poured himself another glass and tipped his head back as he drank it, swallowing it in just a few gulps. His knuckles were white on the bottle, his hands shaking, his entire body tensed. That kid, that goddamned boy, if only he hadn’t come in here with his insane ideas, the thought of a _vampire_ named _Jerry._ His neighbor, if you could believe it.

He trembled again, pouring himself yet another glass.

The monster under his bed hadn’t been real, the shadows in his closet had been inert – the monsters hadn’t done anything so gauche as use the trope-filled methods of coming after him.

Instead, the monster had walked right in through the front door.

Had walked right in, wearing a friendly face, a face his mother and father had trusted. Had taken tea with them, had joked and laughed and engaged them. Talked about Peter and about jobs and about politics and they had sat there with him for _hours_ , safe that first night and then not ever again. The monster had proven to have patience, had come back to their house a second time, a different night. His father’d had enough time to grab the shotgun from where he kept it, load it—

He hadn’t seen that part.

His mother had urged him up the stairs, tears filling her eyes as she looked back to see his father running out of the room towards the threat. He had gone at her urging, afraid and wearing his nightclothes, taking the steps two at a time.

The attic had been a favorite hiding place when he was younger, had been a place of comfort and safety.

When the monster chose to destroy his home, it kept him safe one last time.

He stayed up there all night, heard two shotgun blasts roar, his mother’s final, futile screams, and then silence. The rest had been silence. The police had arrived an hour later, sent by whomever had phoned the police on a delay. The last night he’d seen his parents alive ended with him bundled into the back of their car, flashing lights bright against his near-white skin.

They had been cautious with him, like he was fragile.

Breakable.

At the time, he wouldn’t have thought so. He had been scared, furious, anything but fragile and shaken.

The break had just occurred over the years, he supposed. A slow-motion sort of thing, the long fall and the edited footage. He’d finally hit the ground.

He’d finally shattered.

If the boy had just stayed away, if Charley had just stayed out of his life and _away_ from him, he wouldn’t be breaking right now. He wouldn’t have had to face his thoughts, think about the monster that had been kind and courteous until he’d been ripping his parents apart. The police had done their best to keep him from seeing their bodies but there had been too much blood and gore, too spread out over their entire home.

His mother’s vacant gaze had stared up at him from the kitchen floor.

His father’s hand, the one with his wedding band, had been on a countertop, as if placed there absentmindedly.

He’d been thirteen years old.

From there he had been questioned, let go, followed by an around-the-clock guard just in case the killer came back. A relative had taken him in until he’d turned eighteen.

He’d skipped out on school, taken the funds his parents had left behind.

He’d left England.

He’d tried to pretend that hadn’t felt like abandoning their memory.

Several years later, he’d sobered up for a while and realized he was in New Orleans. There had been an interesting culture there, not anything like what he’d grown up with. He’d learned sleight of hand already, but there had been people willing to teach him other things.

Better things.

Magic acts and card tricks and everything he might have wanted to learn. Timing and distractions and how to perform, how to show off, how to enchant an entire room of people until they were cheering your name, screaming and clapping and adoring.

That had been the closest thing he’d felt to home, to family, in _years_.

And Charley had come in and brought with him the darkness he’d always been running away from. With his name and his photos and his insanity-that-wasn’t-insanity. The monsters had caught up to him, first, and he’d come trailing them behind him.

He was definitely not drunk enough, yet. Not if he was having thoughts like that.

He glanced at the photos on the counter where they’d been left, narrowing his eyes at them for a second. He could deny it all he liked, but he was curious. There had been marks left behind from his monster, the nightmare that had chased him out of his home and across the world. The back of a jacket, punk rock as you’d like, the height of the eighties, that was the mark he remembered the most.

Everything else faded out of his mind, the bottles on the counter and the glass suddenly out of his hand.

One of the photos Charley had taken.

Oh god, one of the photos the boy had taken in connection to the vampire who’d arrived in his life.

He moved to his safe before he knew what he was really doing, unlocking it and throwing it open. There, at the back. It was crinkled, now, the drawing of a thirteen-year-old who remembered what he’d seen but hadn’t been amazing at putting it to paper. He glanced between the old drawing and the new photo and he felt his stomach lurch and drop.

Not only had the boy, Charley, not been insane but he was also in some _serious_ danger.

Taking a deep breath, feeling himself shake his head like he was still trying to deny it, he leaned against the wall. His entire body was trembling, vision blurring as tears welled up. Like his mother, he knew that unless he acted, a child would be in danger.

Charley would be in danger the same way he had been if he didn’t step in to do something.

He didn’t know much about the boy, only knew him as a seventeen-year-old who had come asking an adult for help. Who hadn’t known who else to turn to, that much had been so obvious.

He cursed himself, again and again, and tried to avoid the retching he felt coming, the urge to empty himself until he felt less sick. Charley hadn’t been able to turn to his own family, hadn’t been able to talk to his parents about this. The monster hadn’t invaded his home, yet, hadn’t been able to set up shop and destroy everyone he loved.

His mother’s hands had been trembling as she pushed him towards the stairs, one last tearful glance in his direction as she tried her best to get him to safety.

The photo crumpled in his hand as he lifted his head with all the grace of the drunkard he was and peered around to find the telephone. There was a child in danger, a teenage boy that would never be believed by anybody until it was far too late to save him. This was something he could help with. He wasn’t going to get involved, he would just—

Warn the boy.

Tell him what he knew, tell him what he could. Charley deserved at least a fighting chance.

**Author's Note:**

> I was a little angry about the changes made to the characters and so I am fixing the problems. 
> 
> Peter Vincent was spurred on, inspired, to fight vampires by being there to watch Ed die. He watched a teenager die and realized he needed to step in. In the newer movie, he ran and hid and let Ed be killed by his best friend. As much as I liked the idea of the new Fright Night, I despise some of the things they did in it. 
> 
> Of course, that's to be expected when you get Marti Noxin to write the screenplay. 
> 
> The woman has a history of obsessing over rape, writing something she once did to a guy into the Buffy the Vampire Slayer show. The scene where Spike tries to rape Buffy to get her to stay with him? That's what Marti Noxin actually did to someone. She has an explicit history of...Basically being turned on by rape and then writing it into everything she does. 
> 
> She creeps me out and I am trying to fix it.


End file.
